Chapter 8: Shifting Gears

Little by little, the cricket match was fading from his mind, Cully felt. His holdall and her chair were in the boot of his car, two fewer things to worry about, and maybe their absence was helping. They had been quiet while they walked, yet it was somehow different. She had almost slipped her arm around his as she had that first night, when she had not given it a thought. Something had stayed her hand. The name for it escaped her as she sat, thinking while she waited for him to return from the bar. The silence was simpler, but the mess was still simmering beneath it.

He set the glasses on the battered table—red wine and a half pint of lager—before settling into the chair beside her. Not across the table today but beside her, their shoulders maybe a foot apart, their arms closer. His skin was still tinged with pink, quite pronounced in the artificial light. "Is the world of mobile libraries as exciting as before?" he asked, raising his glass to her before taking a drink.

"Just the same old ladies gossiping," Cully said, returning the gesture. Will it always be like this? she thought. Talking about nothing? "That's the most interesting part. Otherwise, it's organizing the books."

"A dull job? Must be nice."

"They didn't have too much to say about your murder, though."

His eyebrows rose for a moment. "That would be a first."

"I did spend most of the week on the other side of the county, Gavin." She tapped her fingers on the base of her glass. "But how is it going? Dad's said almost nothing about it since Thursday."

"The same as usual: people lying at every turn, investigation taking over all hours of the day. I already have a few to put down in the log."

"Oh?" Cully had a quick sip of wine. That was the curse of the job, she knew, the absence of a set schedule. But it could be turned to advantage as well; she remembered one summer spent roaming through much of France for what she had thought would be forever, due to the combination of overtime and regular holiday time.

"Got dragged back out to the crime scene this morning by your dad," he said, shaking his head. "By now you'd think we could eliminate a few suspects instead of adding more to the list."

"Never a day off?"

"Or an evening, either."

"Well," she said, shifting toward him in her chair, "you'll have to find one, if my audition goes well."

He took a larger drink this time. "Another one?" he asked.

Gavin was almost nervous, Cully decided. No, he was. "Yes, next week. The Causton theater is going to present Pygmalion," she said. "I don't think I've been in one of his plays since university."

"That's more recently than the last time I read one. Year 10, I think."

"Too busy with Pinter?"

He leaned back in his chair, one hand still lingering on the table as he gently drummed his fingers, almost crossly. "I slaved over those things, Cully." He moved forward again. "But I'm not sure I could tell you a thing about any of them now. Too long ago."

"You mean all but one." It had been such a strange coincidence: her father somehow procuring tickets to the sold-out play, tickets delivered by Gavin who, despite his dearth of experience attending the theater, had at least read the play. The first act, she had called it, but whether a comedy or a tragedy...

"If it makes you happy to believe that," he said, quieter.

That uncomfortable silence was rising again, tightening around her stomach anew. Suddenly, he was too close—but her limbs were leaden, too heavy to move. "Well," she said, needing a few seconds to find her voice, "you'll still have to find some time to see it if I'm cast."

"I always have." His voice was flat as he took another deep drink from his glass, staring across the pub. "Nothing—of interest in London?"

"They're all an ordeal to get into, even the auditions," she said, slipping her arm away from his, blood finally returning. She took another mouthful of wine, rather more than before, almost more than was polite. "Besides, I've only just come back to Causton, I've got no reason to leave yet."

"You can't stay in Causton forever," he said, "not if you're wanting to just work in the theater."

"Not forever, but I can stay for a while." Another drink. "Surely you don't want me to go."

He looked at her again in disbelief, his hand sliding towards hers—stopping as he curled his fingers under his palm. It was trembling. "Of course not—"

"Then why are you complaining if I want to stay?"

"I'm not complaining, Cully," he said, swirling the lager in his nearly empty glass. One more distraction. "Just...wondering."

She pulled her arm away completely now, nearly off the table. "What do you need to do that for?"

"I don't know."

God, she thought. "Yes, you do. You're not the best liar the world's ever known, Gavin, at least for the little white lies."

Seeing off the last of his lager, Gavin pushed the glass away. "Did you expect anything else?"

"What does that even mean?" Cully asked. She heard her voice rising, each word clipped.

"Auditions, Cully," he said after a moment. His body was rigid, and he was staring at the table. "They're the only way you've ever left..."

She heard the rest of the sentence. "Gavin, that's not true," she began. "I went to Edinburgh, Oxford, Perth—only long enough for the plays—"

"Yeah..." He shook his head.

"I already told you, it's in Causton." He didn't believe her, Cully realized. "Gavin, what else should I have done? It's not the same thing."

"I know—"

"Can't we just let those alone?" The last of her wine had vanished already, though she did not remember drinking it. "We've been over it all before."

"Cully, I'm sorry—"

"What else do you want me to say?" The crowd was suddenly too loud, dozens of voices melding into white noise ringing in her skull, the air too thick. "I don't have to stay in Causton—I want to stay here for now. What else do you want me to do?" She pushed her chair back—she couldn't sit any longer. "Can we go outside, Gavin? It's too crowded in here."

He didn't answer, but stood instead, pulling his chair away from the table for her to slip by. Stepping through the doorway into the open air—the sun had finally abandoned its quest to break through the clouds—Cully felt the eyes in the pub following her, both of them. People were the same everywhere, she knew, ready to pry into the impending misery of others.

Taking a few paces down the sidewalk—finally able to breathe—she turned back. Behind her, Gavin was wearing the same unhappiness she felt. Almost guilt. "I'm sorry," he said again.

A gust of wind blew out of the dreary sky, tossing hair across her face. "I know," she said, brushing the wild strands back, "you already said that—"

His hand tightened on hers: suddenly, unexpectedly. And when had he come so close? Only a few inches remained between them. "Cully," he said, "I don't want to do all of that again. That's all I mean."

She had to swallow, her mouth dry again as she pulled her hand out of his. "Then that's two of us." It was the same wretched silence, already heavier than the air in the pub, waiting for a stilted word or an awkward sentence, anything to break it.

"I think I'd—better go, Gavin," Cully said, not bothering to look at her watch. The time didn't matter at all. "I promised Mum I'd help her with dinner this evening." Salad, quail, fresh peas, rice pilaf: all the culinary pleasures that lit her father's eyes. "Well, I might have made the promise more to Dad, now that I think about it."

The quiet shattered when Gavin laughed: briefly, quietly, but he had. "Sure," he said, dropping his hand into his pocket to find his car keys. "I wouldn't want to see your father without food again."

"It couldn't have been that bad."

"You had the easy part of the job."

"You didn't sit with him at the dinner table every night."

He twisted the keys around his fingers. "No, but I had to listen to him mutter whenever he looked at the lunch you packed him."

They were almost to the car park, the soft grass transforming to harsh tarmac, before he spoke again. "So, next week, when is your audition?"

"Tuesday," Cully said. Most of the cars parked through the match had vanished, and the few remaining looked lonesome, waiting to be claimed. His car was dark, that was all she recalled. "Tuesday morning." When had been so unimportant, displaced by where.

At the passenger side of one car—four doors, surprisingly unremarkable—he stopped, stepping back for her to go ahead. He pressed the button on the fob dangling from the keyring, and the locks on the doors released with a quiet click.

"How long do you think it will be until you find out?" he asked, resting his arm on the roof, keys in hand, just in front of the passenger door's edge. "About the audition?"

"It depends," she said. "Sometimes it's a few weeks, one time I heard the result the next day." Wouldn't that be nice, happening once more. "It can't be too long, the opening night's only a month or so— Gavin?"

He was looking over her shoulder at the green, frowning again. "Four wickets and forty bloody runs," he whispered, tapping the keys furiously, the metallic echo quickening. "Forty!"

God, she thought, dropping her head back for a moment. "Not the cricket match again, Gavin!"

"Sorry," he said, pulling his arm away from the car's roof.

"No, you're not, Gavin. I already told you once, you're not the best at lying about the small things."

"But I can manage just fine with the large things?"

"I didn't say—" She turned away from another gust of wind, from his face. It was easier, for he appeared almost hurt. "Let's just leave it, Gavin."

The keys rattled again. "Well, what are your plans if it doesn't work out?"

Cully hadn't considered what to do if the audition was unsuccessful—and how complicated the question already was. It had been such an obvious choice to audition, and it was her choice, no one else's. Certainly not his! "I don't know. I might head back to Cambridge," she said after a moment, leaning against the car for a moment, "just to look round to see if anything's available. Or the Fringe Festival, too, back in Edinburgh—some of the larger productions—"

She couldn't breathe, couldn't move her newly paralyzed lungs and limbs as he kissed her. His hand wrapped around hers again gently, warm skin against her cool fingers, and his grasp wasn't worried now, but—hopeful?

Deep in her chest, her heart throbbed, and Cully refused to believe only her pulse pounded in her ears. It was deafening—and so quickly gone, a cruel absence already taking its place. This was not like before, either when too much wine had erased the remnants of crumbling sense or when persistent questions demanded answers destined to be only half-realized in the crisp moonlight.

Those moments were a lifetime ago, or memories belonging to someone else. No, she had never been here before: peering into Gavin's pale face, his cheeks only touched by exertion, the pink tinge no longer hiding a query of what if. The past had vanished, only as real as a dream. Could you kiss someone for the first time three times? Once truly the first, only to be followed by moments so fresh they erased those that had come before. Each new beginning was so new and clean, even if one was so fleeting that it hardly happened at all.

"I'll—just hope it goes well, then," he said, hardly a whisper. This afternoon, he was so very different from the man she had met years ago: rough around the edges, uncertain.

"Yes." Her hand shook—just now, her entire body shivered—and she had to rehearse every word before she spoke. "Can—can I get in, Gavin?"

"Oh," he said, finally lifting the handle, like he had forgotten about ever driving her home, "yes." He did not take his hand from hers until he closed the door.

All through Causton, the drone of the engine was the only sound, just broken by the occasional din of the street; there seemed to be nothing more to say. Once, Cully almost pointed out a turn, but it wasn't necessary. Perhaps he would make a better navigator in the passenger's seat, she thought, her seat belt tightening across her chest when he stopped short at a traffic light. At least he remembered the route, if not the rules of the road.

"You're welcome to stay," she said as he made a turn onto the final street. The final words caught in her throat. "You're welcome to stay for dinner." What are you doing? "I'm sure we'll have more than enough. The recipes are always written for four." Only three quail were prepared, but another could be dressed; all the other dishes could easily be increased...For a moment, she looked out the window at the identical houses blurring into one another, not wanting to see him answer. "And you must be hungry."

The wheels screeched as he turned into the driveway too quickly, and the car jerked to a stop when he pressed his foot too heavily on the brake pedal. "No," he said finally, sliding the keys from the ignition, "but thanks—all the same."

It was a relief and a disappointment as she climbed out of the car: a calm end to a confused day, a clear answer to a question she'd not even considered before voicing. A bit safer with my feet on the ground, she thought as she closed the door.

The wind was rising even while the sun peered through the clouds at last, whipping her hair around her face again, biting her skin. Gavin, too, had closed his door, and already had the boot open. His bag and the chair had shifted during the drive, and he pushed the holdall toward the back, tugging the folded chair out from beneath it. He held it, not moving for a few seconds. "Gavin?"

"Ah, sorry."

"That's your word of the day, 'sorry'."

He held the chair out to her and Cully took it, one hand brushing his. "Well, I think it had to be," he said.

"Are you sure? About dinner?" she asked, setting the end of the camping chair on the tarmac as he slammed the boot closed. Touching his elbow, she smiled, leaning closer. "I won't report how many times you forgot to use the indicator."

The scowl was false, she knew, as he pulled the key from the lock. "Yes, I'm sure," he said, nodding his head toward the door. "You'd better go on."

No, not yet. Cully tightened her fingers on his sleeve, and it was not a choice as she kissed him. Warmth spread over her cheeks—her skin was not flushing but instead sapping the heat from him even as she stepped back quickly. Too soon.

"I'll see you later, then," she said finally, peeling her fingers from his shirt and picking up the chair. If she did not do so now...

"Yeah, see you," he said, quieter. Every breath he exhaled still reached her face. If she didn't go...

Cully turned then, taking quick steps on the sidewalk to the door, almost running. She had fallen into the chasm: betwixt and between, unable to stay and unable to go. It was safer to go, it always had been. Everything else remained a mystery—when she considered Gavin, that was all it had ever been—but she couldn't think about it.

Thrusting her key into the lock, twisting the doorknob, she had to look back. It was the same compulsion that had forced her to call him just two days ago, to kiss him now. Still standing by the boot of the car, his arms hanging at his side like they always did, he was watching her—now she knew it was blood rushing over her face.

It had not faded, that gentle heat she had found a minute ago, and she almost hoped it never would.